1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for a driving guide of a vehicle, and more particularly, to an apparatus and a method for a driving guide of a vehicle that senses other vehicles present in front of the vehicle that is being driven, determining whether a passage is present in front of the vehicle, and providing a driving guide toward the passage.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A navigation system representative of a driving guide system displays a current location of a moving body calculated using information received from a global positioning system (GPS) on a map displayed on a screen. In addition, the navigation system provides a variety of information that assists a driver in driving a vehicle, such as displaying a moving direction of the moving body, a distance up to a destination where the driver is driving, a current moving speed of the moving body, a path set by the driver prior to driving, an optimal path to the destination, and the like.
Currently, the above-mentioned navigation system is mounted on a variety of moving bodies such as a ship, an airplane, a vehicle, and the like and has been widely used to determine a current location and moving speed of the moving body or determine a moving path. Particularly, the navigation system calculates the current location of the moving body by receiving a radio wave that represents latitude, altitude, longitude, or the like from a plurality of satellites connected to the GPS and then visually displays or acoustically informs map information including the current location to or of the driver. A car navigation system applied to the vehicle, which is being driven on a road, visually or acoustically provides various information such as a current driving road and location, a driving path of the road, a degree of congestion of the road, and the like.
The above-mentioned car navigation system receives a satellite radio wave from a GPS satellite and calculates a distance from the satellite by receiving the radio wave to detect the current location of the vehicle, and detects map data for a related region from a database and then displays the detected current location together with map information on a display unit. In addition, the car navigation system displays the driving path from a driving start location to a current driving location on the screen by determining a driving distance by a driving distance sensing unit such as a speed sensor and calculating a driving direction by an azimuth detecting unit such as a gyro sensor. Furthermore, the car navigation system increases a degree of precision of the map data stored in the database to display the driving direction on the display unit or output the driving direction by an audio output via a speaker when a change in the path is required, such as an intersection, a crossroad, or the like, for example.
The driving guide system has recently been improved toward the navigation system guiding the path as described above and a system that guides a general driving environment such as road conditions, or the like. An attempt to guide driving conditions more precisely has been made by recognizing a lane in which the vehicle is currently driven, whether a passage through which the vehicle may pass is present in front of the vehicle, and the like for performing a realistic driving guide, departing from a concept simply guiding the driving conditions based on road information on the map.